Veggie Pizza

This week, I have an extra pair of hands at home to take care of my little one (my hubby is on vacation .. hurray!!). Given this, I wanted to cook something different for lunch today and decided to make pizza. Pizza is something that we all love at our home. CPK (California Pizza Kitchen) / Olive garden are our absolute favorites when it comes to Italian cuisine and we always enjoy going there whenever we crave for Italian. My daughter if given a choice between Indian / Italian, without a second thought would instantly yell "Pizza".

I decided to give a nice surprise to my hubby & kid by pairing pizza with some breadsticks :)

Ingredients

For Pizza dough
Whole Wheat Flour - 1.5 cups (I used Annapurna Atta)
Salt - 1 tsp
Honey - 3/4 tbsp
Powdered oats - 1/4 cup
Fleischmann's Active dry yeast - 1 packet
Olive oil - 1 tbsp
Water - as required (I used less then 1/4th of a cup while kneading)

Toppings
Blend of four Italian cheese (store bought)
Chopped vegetables (onions, tomatoes, corn, black olives, pineapple, cashews, jalapenos)
Marinara sauce (I used Organics Marinara sauce)

Method
Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit.  In a small bowl, dissolve yeast in 1/4 cups of warm water. Let stand until it froths, about 10 minutes.

In a large bowl combine whole wheat flour, powdered oats and salt. Make a well in the middle and add honey and yeast mixture. Stir well to combine. Cover and set in a warm place to rise for 30 minutes. The dough should get doubled in size.

Roll dough on a floured pizza pan, and add toppings of your choice. Bake in preheated oven for 10 to 15 minutes, or until desired crispiness is achieved.

Tips:

• You can also mix all purpose flour with whole wheat flour (50/50). Although my pizza tasted good, the crust was breaking when folded. I am hoping that this problem will be solved if we use all purpose flour along with whole wheat flour.
• If your yeast doesn't froth in warm water, discard and start with a new packet of yeast.
• It took 2-3 (personal) pizzas for me to finalize on the thickness of the crust. Initially, I had rolled out the dough too thin that the crust got so crunchy. After the dough was rolled out little thicker, I was able to cook the crust to desirable crispiness.